Remix Kits
“Every track these days should be considered a work in progress. Everything is version 1.0, and anybody should be allowed to take your ideas and add their own ideas to it. We need to be more open about music, ideas and ownership. For electronic music to progress we need to be more open-minded. I believe a producer should be allowed to reuse and resample anything they want, in a reasonable manner. At the moment, a producer creates a track and then this song is supposed to be left like that forever, like a rock in a field… everything changes with time, and I believe that each song should be allowed to have a life of its own after itʼs released to the public.” (Richie Hawtin)
What’s Remix.me ?
Remix.me service is selling multitrack master audio files (all individual parts in a package) at a premium price (between 5 to 40x the price of a standard song), that may grant the buyer right to remix for its own usage but also (that’s copyright owners decision) sell on Remix.me, NeoMusicStore.com and affiliate websites (such as DJing.com), its own website, blog, MySpace, Facebook or any other webpage provided that he uses NeoMusicStore technology for tracking.
Audience
Music is often associated to personality, group of people hanging out, etc… Personalization is clearly a key, and this is something that has already been seen with the success of ringtones. This is not the audience we are targeting though. With the technology becoming more accessible, both in terms of prices and simplicity, number of DJs, producers or wannabe’s is growing steadily as the success of Beatport, Traxsource, … and DJ sets websites show.
Who will buy remix kits ?
- Traditional DJs (those using acaps and tools now) wanting more personalization in their sets
- Growing number of DJs using Ableton or other live-sequencing software for sets
- DJs that use remixes as promotion to get additional touring dates.
- Producers who struggle to get their own productions promoted could get easier in the highlights with a good remix and then benefit from it for their own productions (Many electronic music artists got reputation with remixes)
- Bootlegs fans who can be converted to a legal way
Communication
Innovating is always a good mean to get attention from press and influencers (as shown by Radiohead). By providing full access to the “essence/core” of your music, you go beyond the non-DRM consensus that now prevails across the music market and offer an additional layer of freedom to the customer, and you put a real (and clearly profitable) sense to “file sharing”.
Virality without any effort is also one of the benefits as the customers are doing the promotion for you (as they are encouraged to promote their own remix). If a remix becomes popular, you sell more original tracks and remix kits… and get more chances to see a popular remix, whether it is right after the publishing of the track or years after with a “new sound”. This is a vertuous circle, and virtually an unlimited lifetime for your catalogue.
Remix.me is a great name for a service that just let users remix the music available. Easy to remember and to promote (Every artist get an http://myname.remix.me URL). Promotion will be made through iPhone apps.
Rights
The most important thing for copyright owners in this scheme is to know that derivative works from the original master files doesn’t transfer any right to the remixer. That means, that the original artist, producer, editor may choose to use and even license differents remixes to other platforms without needing the consent of the remixer. Nevertheless, copyright owners remain free to negotiate financial terms with the remixer about these usages if they want to.
Technology and market evolution
Digital age is here, even for music distribution, and we may not have seen the whole impact yet. Sooner or later, this trend of giving more to the customers that what they were used to in the physical model, will become mainstream. Other companies are heading to it: MXP4/iKlax could be the solution chosen by majors, with the usual restrictions that won’t make the customers really happy about it: DRM, interoperability issues, lack of freedom for the remixes (all variations being made solely by the original artist, which also implies more work at the production level). As an independent player, like for DRM, you can do better and faster. You can start with only one track with high “remix potential” from your back catalogue, or you can start with a current or forthcoming release to better measure the involvements, or even go directly with the full catalogue.
As digital means virtually no transport or storage limitations, in the end the catalogue sold on almost all stores will be the same and prices/services only will make the difference so prices can only decrease over time. With legal offers (such as Spotify, Imeem, We7, Deezer, …) only relying on ads multiplying and growing at a fast rate, the march towards it, is inescapable for a-la-carte listens/downloads.
Up-selling (ie offering additional products with higher margins) could be a way to anticipate this market evolution while maintaining (and even increasing) revenues per track. Many charts successes have also been reworks lately.
What do I need to start ?
You don’t need additional work to get your multitrack master audio files, unless you want to provide them in multiple preformatted packages (such as Ableton-live, Pro Tools, Garage Band, etc). The default and mandatory format is raw WAVE files.
You need to sign up as a label or artist on NeoMusicStore (demo account available on http://labels.neomusicstore.com or http:// artists.neomusicstore.com). Start now to build and upload your catalogue to benefit from day 1 operation. NeoMusicStore relies on a direct selling model. This implies that you are free to choose selling prices (even if some recommendations are done), and can be paid directly and in real-time by the customer. You get 100% royalties (no commission to NeoMusicStore) when sales are done on your website or any page you manage), or 70% of sales when purchased on Remix.me website or affiliates.
Questions ?
Use comments section below
